The United States bid has received a lot of attention -- mainly because President Obama has put his weight behind his country and his hometown and because conservatives -- contradicting their usual "patriotism" -- have blasted the idea of having the games in Chicago/USA.

4 comments:

Darren, I am in Chicago and, frankly, I don't care about the Olympics one way or another. But the Repubs' reaction to this "loss" is remarkable for its immaturity. Anything to stick it to Obama. If he didn't go, they would blame him for the "loss" too.

Wonder if Krauthammer starts calling this silly behavior an Obama Derangement Syndrome any time soon? Oh, wait, he won't.

Agreed! Most of my friends in Chicago did not want the Olympics -- for the same reason I opposed NYC's bid to have the games when I lived there. But conservatives are behaving badly. What happened to their flagpin patriotism?

Big Wanabe: Oh come on. The Olympics has been on Obama's radar since before the presidency. And the only way that the loss of the Olympics affects the "prestige" of the presidency is if people think it relates to the effectiveness of the president. There are many reasons to hold the Olympics in or outside of the US. The value of the US president is probably not on the list of factors at all. This, in addition to the natural patriotism surrounding the Olympics, is why I find the conservative criticism odd.

Furthermore, I have not "changed" my intellectual outlook. I just don't like conservative "arguments" in this setting.

Finally, I am happy Rio got the Olympics -- but I don't think this has anything to do with Obama. Honestly, I think the negative reaction has largely come from people who just want him to fail at anything. There were Dems who felt the same way about Bush. Partisanship runs deeply on both sides.

About Me and the Blog

Professor Darren Hutchinson teaches Constitutional Law, Remedies, Race and the Law, and a Civil Rights Seminar at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Professor Hutchinson also holds the prestigious Stephen C. O’Connell Chair.
Professor Hutchinson received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Before teaching law, Professor Hutchinson practiced commercial litigation at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton in New York City. He also clerked for the late Honorable Mary Johnson Lowe, a former United States District Judge in the Southern District of New York.
Professor Hutchinson's research has appeared in many prestigious journals including the Cornell Law Review, Washington University Law Review, UCLA Law Review, University of Michigan Journal of Race and Law, and University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law.
He has also presented his research at numerous universities, including Yale, Stanford, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, University of California at Berkeley, University of Virginia, Cornell, Georgetown, and Boston University.

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